Member of the Senedd for Vale of Clwyd and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism, Sport, and North Wales, has called on the Welsh Government to declare a health emergency, citing severe strain on NHS services, particularly within Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Glan Clwyd Hospital.
During a debate tabled by the Welsh Conservatives, Mr Davies urged the Welsh Government to recognise the scale of the crisis facing the Welsh NHS and argued that decisive action was needed and echoing the comments made by the Chief Executive of the Welsh NHS which called for a response on par with the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also highlighted statistics from his constituency and across Wales, drawing attention to long A&E waits, rising treatment backlogs, and the increasing number of patients waiting over two years for care. He raised the latest NHS statistics for Wales which revealed NHS treatment waiting lists remain at 789,929 pathways, the equivalent of nearly 1-in-4 Welsh people, with close to 200,000 of these being within the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. Two-year NHS waits for treatment have also risen by close to 15% from the previous month, compared with only 171 in England.
He emphasised the need for extraordinary measures, including a full health emergency declaration, to address the systemic failure affecting patients daily. Davies criticised the Welsh Government’s approach, arguing that they have already declared climate and nature emergencies, and urged the Welsh Government to put the health of Wales before political convenience. He reiterated the Welsh Conservatives’ proposals for fast tracked surgeries, new surgical hubs, a seven-day GP service, and a dedicated NHS recovery taskforce with direct oversight by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.
Following the debate, Mr Davies commented:
“One in four people in Wales are on a waiting list, with residents in North Wales facing the worst waiting times in the UK under the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.
“I regularly speak with patients at Glan Clwyd Hospital, and the current waiting times are not sustainable or acceptable in a developed nation, with two-year waits moving in the wrong direction.
“Declaring a health emergency isn’t about playing politics, it’s about recognising the scale of the challenge and taking immediate action to improve outcomes for patients. North Wales deserves better, and our health service needs focused leadership from the Welsh Government to get it back on track.
“The Welsh Labour Government have declared a climate and nature emergency, it’s only right that a health emergency is declared too.”